


her liquor's top shelf

by burgundians



Series: black tracks and dingy dives [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, F/M, Past Child Abuse, mentions of drug abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 01:58:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burgundians/pseuds/burgundians
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s 18 bucks in her pocket and somebody else’s jacket on her shoulders. americana au</p>
            </blockquote>





	her liquor's top shelf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [volchitza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/volchitza/gifts).



1. 

  
This was the worst part. There were many in this job, but there was something undeniably awful about handling ice cubes and freezing glasses and cold water all the same time.

 

_You only have yourself to blame._

 

“Hey Mary, two beers for table six.”

 

The bottles were out of her hands and into Ruby’s before she could think.

 

Not much need for it, really.

 

Open fridge drawer, withdraw bottle, remove cap. Best do it quickly, before your fingers freeze.

 

 _It’s so cold. Everything’s always so cold_.

 

~

 

_So much promise, everybody said._

 

_So bright._

 

_So lovely._

 

_~_

 

She should never have taken up with a married man. She’d known that from the moment she’d set eyes on him, perfect specimen of the anglo-saxonic american race. A regular prince charming, wedding ring off ( _tan line perfectly visible, and do they really think women are morons_ )

 

She’d known that when she’d given him her phone number and when she fell in bed with him a few days later, so tired, so lonely.

 

So very tired.

 

She’d known that especially when the missus barged in with her fingers curled around a pipe, Mary hiding behind the counter and  _no, she hasn’t shown up for work for a few days, Mrs Nolan_ , Ruby had said.

 

~

 

She’d been a kid when her dad remarried. She’d been so happy, to have a mother again.

 

A snort.

 

A cloud of smoke.

 

Break’s over.

 

~

 

_Such an utter waste._

 

~

 

Her step-mother’s nails dug into the skin of her face, holding her jaw. Mad eyes, she remembered that.

 

Regina had the saddest eyes she had ever seen.

 

But she didn’t care because it hurt.

 

_It hurt._

 

 _IT HURT_.

 

~

 

She should have said no, but she was tired (you’re always tired) and lonely (you’re always lonely) and she’d just flushed the note that David had sent down the toilet.

 

_No more cowards. No more._

 

Dr. Whale buys her a drink and she says yes.

 

~

 

She leaves home 3 months, 14 days, and 2 hours and 26 minutes after her seventeenth birthday. She knows because the last thing she saw before she closed the door was her dad’s pendulum clock. It burned in the back of her mind.

 

At 2 hours and 26 minutes in the morning, she closed the door, stepped off the porch, walked down the gravel path and went west.

 

~

 

_She’s nineteen when she makes it to Santa Monica. She lost her first kiss in the backseat of a car back home and her virginity to a fast talking biker._

 

_There’s 18 bucks in her pocket and somebody else’s jacket on her shoulders._

 

_She blows the 18 bucks on the ferris wheel and sleeps in the sand with a stranger’s jacket._

 

_~_

 

Dr. Whale is thirsty.

 

Dr. Whale is always thirsty.

 

For scotch, for borboun, for beer.

 

He’s thirsty for her too, or else he wouldn’t be kissing her so desperately in a back alley.

 

~

 

 

 

_She wakes up to the sound of seagulls, stands up, and turns around and goes east._   
  


 

2.

 

A doctor shouldn’t drink so much.

 

A doctor shouldn’t get fired and nearly lose his license.

 

He squints at the amber liquid and steals a glance at the pixie-haired bartender.

 

~

 

“Wanna go out?”

 

Her shirt is rumpled, his hair shooting in every direction.

 

They’re standing next to the trashcan and they can hear distant stray cats fighting.

 

“Seriously?”

 

~

 

_Who the hell asks a girl out after groping her in an alley?_

 

~

 

David never took her out.

 

He was always too scared of being seen.

 

Their dates ended up in her room, a used condom in the trashcan.

 

~

 

_She wanted so badly to punch his teeth in._

 

_Almost as much as she wanted to punch herself._

 

~

 

“What’s your problem?”

 

~

 

It’s fun. She’s had some men in her bed, sweet lovers, rough lovers, awkward lovers, even Ruby a couple of times.

 

But the good doctor is fun. His nose tickles when it roams close to her armpits and she laughs.

 

The sound is so unfamiliar that she wants to cry.

 

~

 

“A guy like you hanging around a place like this. Must be something wrong with you.”

 

~

 

_A doctor shouldn’t be performing surgery in a back room, with almost no light and mould in the wallpaper._

 

_But here we are, he thinks as he drinks his evening’s reward._

 

~

 

She paints her toenails blue.

 

_You look so pretty, Mary, blue is your colour, her mother had said, now give me the other foot._

 

It’s been a while since she made an effort.

 

~

 

“It’s daddy issues, isn’t it.”

 

~

 

He shows up at her doorstep, every once in a while. His breath smells like liquor (it always smells like liquor) and he looks lost (he looks lost when he thinks she can’t see).

 

“Gerry.”

 

It sounds like he’s being ripped apart from the inside.

 

~

 

_Maybe he is, she wouldn’t know._

 

_She pretends she doesn’t care but the cigarette shakes in her hand._

 

~

 

He finds her in the kitchen and kisses her like he’s trying not to drown.

 

Sits her on the counter and tries to devour her inner thighs.

 

~

 

_What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this, he wants to ask._

 

_Princess with scars from somewhere between nowhere and goodbye._

 

_There’s a million like her._

 

_(No, there aren’t)_

 

~

 

He laughs like a kid and says he found the Holy Land.

 

It’s right between her laughs, he says.

 

She kicks him and tells him he’s going to hell.

 

~

 

“My brother OD’ed. When he came back from the war.”

 

It had once been a boarding house, he’d been told. The rooms are small, damp and have seen far better days. The electric system is all shot to hell, and he can’t plug in more than two things at once.

 

A bartender named Mary Margaret is lying naked in his bed, running her fingers through his hair and he wants to die happy, right then and there.

 

~

 

“Maybe I just like the ambience.”

 

~

 

 

_He always drowns._


End file.
